Developmental Disabilities: A Simple Guide for Service Providers

by Mac Griffith

• A psychologist gives a non-technical overview of developmental disabilities. • EMPATHETIC LEARNING is promoted through stories of real individuals. • Vibrant storytelling and humor keep the information lively. • Speaks simply and directly to caregivers. • Gives direct care staff training, ideas, and motivation, so they can provide better service, find more joy in their work, and reduce the stress that can lead to staff turnover. • Excellent for in-service training, as well as for individual study. This book is for those who provide direct supports to individuals with developmental disabilities. It is designed to make up for some of the training and experience gaps of those on the front lines. It is not a traditional academic textbook on developmental disabilities although it contains an overview of academic knowledge, simply presented. The book also vividly and personally conveys the emotional dilemmas of this work through stories based on real people. The focus is on real-world problems and solutions. The audience includes direct care staff, case managers, supervisors, families, and others. Mac Griffith, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Summit County, Colorado. He was staff psychologist for many years with a community-based agency for individuals with developmental disabilities. He was also a university professor and has published and spoken widely. Less traditionally, Mac has also written a feature column for a local mountain newspaper, humor features for the Denver Post, and has published longer essays in the Mountain Gazette, a regional magazine. .

184 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 22, 2012

About the author

Mac lives in a small mountain town in Colorado. He likes skiing, fly fishing, running trails, and reading, but not quite to the exclusion of all other forms of human activity.

Reviews

[Alexandria Avona · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a fantastic book for one reason and one alone. This guy is truly wonderful when it comes to being empathetic and genuinely warm to people with MR/ID. He sees the charm in the thinking that comes from just being human. He can see they way they think and sees himself from their perspective, where HE'S the dumb one. I really aspire to that kind of empathy. And he is able to also see his own issues, where he is very aggravated when someone is smarter than him and sees that he isn't able to get past that but can speak candidly about it. And how jealous and envy and the like can lessen and almost do something like going away with time when they're allowed to be safely expressed and admitted. I think this is really wonderful to aspire to be like this.
That said, there is some AWFUL advice in here. He believes the answer to dealing with people with MR/ID who are absolutely certain they are in the right, that they are in a power play, and aren't able to learn quickly is to just give them what they want. He says to apply the "drano" test..."is it like giving someone drano", but in a misogynist culture sometimes r*pe doesn't pass the drano test. NOT ok. It is not a specific enough test and no, you should not just give someone their way when it does real damage to the world views of others. In fact, much of this collective loss of incision starts when people who shouldn't get their way so much get their way. This is NOT good advice.

I also think he's naive. Parents can and do "resign" all the time from being parents, sometimes out of no more than the same rages as the MR/ID people he cites. In fact, I think most of these resignations come from parents who are on the MR/ID spectrum and simply just can't do the parenting thing.

So I think there is a lot of truth here. And yes, he needs it to be about him a lot. But I think what he says about viewing from other people's perspective is genuinely real. There is a little bit of dehumanization behind it, not really seeing that behind their worldview is actually genuine pain that this isn't the way the world is. That it's just sort of funny. But I can see that at least he got to the part of seeing it their way, which sometimes I don't even get to, but when I do, I begin to want to add on how painful that is and I don't see that much humanization from him.

I really appreciate that he says "retardation" used to be the fact of the matter. Now "intellectual disability" is the case, but in the future it may also be a slur. The fact stands that there are people above and below the norm of average pattern-making. Those below the norm don't adapt as easily and need extra support in societies that value social contract and the ease it provides to not being murdered in the night because you missed one mark on your multiplication test. He uses MR because he doesn't think it's a slur and it's still used bureaucratically in many situations. It simply refers to those less adaptive in this matter, and he says that's always going to hurt to refer to. That doesn't make it a slur. Just because it hurts doesn't mean it should be referred to otherwise, because then we can all run into serious danger being in denial of who can and can't be near the nuke codes. I appreciate that he says that the best reaction to have is, "Damn, that is discouraging." Not, "That's not true." Because it is discouraging. Being reminded of our upper limits hurts everyone. But he reminds us MR/ID can learn, but SLOWLY. The anger from otherwise never results in true comprehension and a lot of damage.

I really appreciate this book. I don't think it's my style or I want it to be my style, but there's a lot of REALLY good advice in it for dealing with MR/ID and some REALLY BAD advice as well.

I've pointed out which is which in this review. And I do believe this evaluations are pretty legitimate and more concrete than the author thinks is possible.

[Ashlee Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Light-hearted approach to an often heavy hearted subject

This is a great short read for anyone that works with the DD population. Informative and witty, without being riddled with technical jargon.